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Did i make the wrong choice with my 6870?

MrElve

MrElve

MrElve

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Joined
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Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
ok everybody so i've had my new pc for nearly 3-4 weeks now since i built it and it has been running the XFX AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB which i bought for £199.99 from overclockers. and i've seen people selling theirs on ebay etc. and i have done lots of research and its not as powerful as the same priced 5870 =/. Plus the 69xx range is out now for nearly an extra boost of nearly 1/2 of the performance the 6870 can dish out for only an extra £50-60.

I need your opinions guys, the 6870 is a 5850-5870 card (middle) which is the 6xxx mid-range and the 6970 is a 5870-5970 card (middleish) which is the 6xxx high end card (until AMD release their dualcore 6990). Should i sell my 6870 now while prices are good and i could still get a lot of money for it (considering its only 3-4 weeks old and practically new with box and everything etc.) and get a 6970?
 
It's not that much slower then the 5870 and it does come with a ton of features so I wouldn't get to worked up over it although £199 is a bit more then I would want to pay for a 6870 (try £175).

If you were to sell your 6850 realistically your going to get about £150/£160 for it and to get a 6970 will be another £100 on top. Are really that unhappy with your 6870's performance that you need to fork out another £100?
 
You should have purchased the Ati 5870's when they were on offer or even the MSI 5850's... There is not much between the 6870, 5850 and the 5870 is again a little more powerful.. So really your money would have been better spent on the 58** series when they were at the offer prices.

Example


XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card supplied with AVP PC-Game @ £176.24 inc VAT

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18221094&highlight=OcUK+ATI+Radeon+5870

would have saved you £25 for better performance. I also saw the the OCuk 5870 go for less then that so would have been a £35 saving and better performance.


Performance charts of the cards.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/29.html
 
im not really sure to be honest.. im overwhemled on how powerful the 6870 is for its size but i would really wouldnt mind paying an extra £60-70 if i could sell my 6870 to get nearly twice the power (6970 gets an extra 22fps, totaling 45 on unigine :/) plus i was eagerly awaiting the 69xx but the 68xx was the only one out at the time and i was told they got delayed but they werent so i was told wrong information :/
 
And i have bought the standard 6870 and was hoping to crossfire later in the year but now they're releasing OC'd 6870s for cheapers, just feel like ive totally wasted my money..
 
It must have been longer than 3-4 weeks ago when you bought the 6870 as i bought my 6950 on the 15th of December so that was over 4 weeks ago. I think a few days after i bought my HIS 6950 for £219, overclockers had the VTX 6950 for £199 and with the ability to flash the bios to turn them into a 6970. Allways do your research is the moral of this tale. If i were you i would just stick with your 6870 and learn from your mistake.
 
kingy666 said:
It must have been longer than 3-4 weeks ago when you bought the 6870 as i bought my 6950 on the 15th of December so that was over 4 weeks ago. I think a few days after i bought my HIS 6950 for £219, overclockers had the VTX 6950 for £199 and with the ability to flash the bios to turn them into a 6970. Allways do your research is the moral of this tale. If i were you i would just stick with your 6870 and learn from your mistake.
Click to expand...

mmmmmm =/
 
Unigine is a benchmark, not a game. Not point in using it as a performance comparison, esp as tessellation isn't thatimportant at the moment.

Use the link Purgatory posted, and this one below, to get an idea of the differences in games :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/12


The 6970 is between 10-30% faster than a 6870, depending on the resolution.

Not the 100% quicker that unigine teased you with :)

Plus, you're realistically be looking at around £100+, not £60-£70, to change to a 6970.

Cheapest 6970 on OcUK is £275. You'll probably get around £150 for your 6870 2nd hand.
 
MoodyB said:
Unigine is a benchmark, not a game. Not point in using it as a performance comparison, esp as tessellation isn't thatimportant at the moment.

Use the link Purgatory posted, and this one below, to get an idea of the differences in games :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/12


The 6970 is between 10-30% faster than a 6870, depending on the resolution.

Not the 100% quicker that unigine teased you with :)

Plus, you're realistically be looking at around £100+, not £60-£70, to change to a 6970.

Cheapest 6970 on OcUK is £275. You'll probably get around £150 for your 6870 2nd hand.
Click to expand...

Okay well thank you everybody for your help / advice etc. I realise i should have extended my research and just had a bit of patience, but at the end of the day, my XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB is still a good card right? :) and ill probably just crossfire it later on :)

Oh by the way, while we are on this topic, what is microstuttering? ive heard it can get REALLY bad on SLi / CrossfireX which is where it mainly appears, is it so bad that i should stay single? or go dual?
 
MrElve said:
And i have bought the standard 6870 and was hoping to crossfire later in the year but now they're releasing OC'd 6870s for cheapers, just feel like ive totally wasted my money..
Click to expand...

You haven't, esp if you crossfire with another 6870.

40-70% quicker than a £275 6970 for around £175, when the upgrade from a 6870>6970 could cost you £125 ?

6870 crossfire makes much more sense than selling the 6870 for the 6970 imho.
 
Your decision was not to bad tbh as the 6970 is no where near twice as fast as the 6870 in games. There may be the odd thing like heaven where tesselation power is needed and the 6870 falls well behind but in gaming at my resolution of 1920x1200 the gap is only around 20%. This review has loads of games benched and below is the link to the performance summary.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/29.html
 
Thanks for all the posts guys, ill definetly be looking to crossfire as ive seen amazing reviews from big names on youtube and websites etc. thanks all for help :) have a good.. well.. morning? lol :P
 
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